Chapter 29
“YOU’RE UNDER a lot of pressure these days, Remy. How’re you doing?”
I sat in the chair in Alicia’s office. I spaced my therapy appointments at wider intervals when I started my training for the attempt at the U23 team, because there came a time when trying to squeeze even therapy into a tightly packed schedule itself provoked anxieties.
“No towers with high-powered rifles!” I snorted. “Seriously, I’m meeting my obligations and keeping my sense of humor. More or less. So I think I’m ahead of the game.”
“Careful there. If I thought you were in any way serious, there are a whole bunch of annoying and intrusive questions I’d be asking you right now.”
I rolled my eyes. So much for cutting back on contemptuous gestures. “‘A danger to himself or others’? My questionable sense of humor is a coping mechanism and you know it.”
“I do know it, which is why I’m not interrogating you.” Alicia flipped through her notes. “How’re you doing post-Michael?”
“He dumped me, but he’s quickly becoming the Ex Who Won’t Go Away. Please note the caps.” I growled. “He’s trying to have it both ways. He wants to be friends and joke about the breakup, but it almost seems like he expects me to still be the boyfriend, too.”
“Can you tell me about that?”
I tried to get a read on Alicia, but damn, I’d hate to play poker against her.
“Well, take his grad night. He wanted—basically told me—to come up with a surprise for him.”
“So did you?” She scribbled notes so fast her hand was a blur.
“Yes, and I hate myself for it now, too.”
“But you did it?” Alicia phrased it as a question, but it wasn’t, not really.
“I did. I planned the perfect romantic evening, and when he made a stupid joke about me not caring, I unloaded on him.”
Alicia stopped writing and looked up at me. “Why do you think that was?”
I hated therapist doublespeak. “Because I’m finally accepting the fact that we’re done, and I don’t like it. I’m allowed my feelings, too. If he wants to stick around and make jokes about dumping me, then he gets to hear about it.”
“That’s a healthy attitude, you know.”
Oddly enough, for all her fevered note taking, Alicia hadn’t resumed writing.
“I guess. He felt bad for saying anything. Then I felt bad for ripping into him.”
“Who’s responsible for Michael’s feelings?”
“Um… not me?”
“Is that a question or a statement, Remy?”
Gag, therapists. “It’s a statement. I’m not responsible for Michael’s feelings.”
“And if you don’t think it’s healthy to be around Michael anymore, then I recommend you don’t be around Michael anymore.” Alicia resumed writing.
“It’s not that easy.” That sounded pitiful even to me.
“Actually it is that easy. Say no when Michael asks. If you feel compelled to say yes, you need to ask yourself, what are you getting out of it? The reality is, if you find yourself in a pattern you don’t want to break, on some level you’re getting something from it.” Alicia pierced me with one those looks of hers. “It may not be healthy—in fact, I’d bet on that—but you’ll be getting something out of it. You need to ask yourself what that is. Once you figure that out, at least you can make an informed decision.”
“Even if it’s only that I’m really not ready to be cut loose?”
Alicia nodded. “Even if it’s only that. There’s nothing wrong with that, by the way. He broke up with you, not the other way around. You’re going to be looking for closure for a while, but don’t mistake closure for something it’s not, or with jumping when he whistles for a real relationship. It’s not—it’s being used.”
“WE’RE GOING to starve to death when you make that selection camp,” my dad said after his second helping of the vegetable casserole I made for dinner.
I handled a fair amount of the cooking, since they worked and I was generally ravenous after my second daily practice. My training diet was protein heavy and, while not vegetarian, derived a fair amount of that protein from nonmeat sources. My parents adapted.
Mom made a face. “I don’t relish going back to takeout.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll leave you with plenty of frozen leftovers, all in individual portions and clearly labeled.” I smiled. I enjoyed being needed.
“Have you given any thought to what happens if you don’t make the camp?” Mom said.
“Honestly? Not even a little bit. Between practicing and finishing school for the semester, I’ve barely kept my nose at the waterline. Anything more and I think I’d have gone under.” I hadn’t told them this next bit. “I almost did as it was, until I fell apart at Lodestone, and it turned out I hadn’t been reading my training plan right. I’d been overtraining—working way too hard—until Lodestone caught my mistake. As it was, my grades slipped.”
“Be careful, Rem.” Dad frowned. “You need that scholarship.”
“I know, Dad. I brought my grades back up, and I met with my coaches about it. They told me not to worry. I think it helped that I went in knowing there was a problem and having a solution in hand.”
Mom beamed at me. “I love how much you’ve grown up this year.”
I squirmed. Not the most comfortable subject for me.
“It’s true, Jeremy. Don’t be afraid of the compliment. Your brother’s always gone with the flow, but you? You’ve always been a fighter, and that’s both good and bad.”
“What does that mean?”
“Only that not everything is a battle, but you see it that way,” Dad said. “When something is a battle, however, you’ll conquer it. When someone crosses you? You’ll render him down to stew meat, probably before he knows what’s coming. See the difference? It can be a tremendous waste of resources, but in troubled times, chances are you’ll come out on top. As for your brother, it can take a fair amount of effort to get his attention, and it may be too late by the time something rouses him. That’s why Laurel is so good for him.”
I nodded. “That makes sense. So what I’ll need in a husband is someone to balance out my appetite for destruction.”
“I’m not sure I’d put it that way, but yes.” Dad laughed. “You have a lot of drive, and you’ll go where you want to go in life. You’re highly intelligent, and you’re not patient with people you perceive as less intelligent. So yes, you’ll need someone who can handle your rough edges and interpret the rest of the world for you. If nothing else, someone who’ll take you everywhere twice—the second time to apologize.”
“Someone like Michael. Where’s he been, by the way?” Mom said.
I flinched. “Yeah, about him….”
“Yes?” Mom said.
“Okay, this won’t be easy, and it brings up a bunch of subjects I’ve needed to discuss with you anyway.” I took a deep breath. “We broke up. Actually, he dumped me.”
Mom and Dad exchanged one of those “parental looks.”
“I’m sure I speak for your mother too, but I’m very sorry to hear that, Jeremy. I know how much he meant to you.” Dad looked like he meant it, too.
“We’d had a plan whereby I’d transfer to BU and he’d go to a school in Boston as well, but then I toured BU before Head of the Charles and learned it wasn’t the school for me. Then I spent the time between then and earlier this spring chewing out my entrails trying to screw up my courage to tell Michael.” I sighed. “That wasn’t all I screwed up, I guess. The excrement hit the fan a few weeks before the Crew Classic. He still can’t tell me exactly why it was a deal breaker, particularly since he won’t be going to school in Boston himself, but there it is. Anyway, that’s a long way of saying I’m not transferring.”
My parents looked shocked, I’ll give them that.
“That’s actually a fairly brief way of delivering a lot of news at once,” Dad said. “So. Michael. How do you feel about this?”
�
�Obviously I wasn’t too happy, but you can’t make people stay in a relationship. I’m talking it over in therapy, and we’re trying to stay friends, Michael and I.” I stopped pretending to eat, not even bothering to push food around on my plate for all that I’d cooked it.
Mom raised one eyebrow. I’ve heard it’s a heritable trait, so maybe I got it from her. “Interesting choice of words—trying to stay friends.”
“I know, right?” I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. “I’m trying not to find the way he handled it offensive—not talking to me for weeks, then being an asshole before getting over himself and expecting us to be almost like we were before, only not boyfriends—while he’s trying not to get angry at me for being angry.”
“Jeremy Babcock—life in hard mode” was all Dad said.
“I don’t go out of my way to make things hard, honest.”
Dad laughed. “No, I don’t suppose you do. It seems to happen nonetheless.”
“Tell me about it,” I said ruefully. For years I’d tended to do my thing without bothering my parents about it. Partly that was a twin thing. Geoff and I had kept in nearly constant contact with each other as we’d grown older and grown into our high-school activities, because it felt more natural to us than letting our parents know. Eventually they’d stopped fighting it and started asking us. But now Geoff and I lived on opposite ends of the state, and I lived very close to our parents. Maybe I needed to mend some fences. “I don’t suppose….”
“What, Jeremy?” Mom said.
“That is, I know it’s not much notice and all that, less than two weeks, but is there any way you might come out to see me race at the selection camp?” Why did this matter to me? I didn’t know, but somehow it did suddenly.
I held my breath while my parents looked at each other.
“Awww jeez, never mind. It was a stupid question. Forget I asked.” I couldn’t get away from the table fast enough.
“Remy!” Mom called after me. “Come back.”
“Coach Lodestone already gave us the dates,” Dad said. “We’ve been waiting for you to ask.”
That stopped me in my tracks. “Oh.”
“Actually, speaking of asking, that’s what we did. We wanted to be there to support you, but you know what it’s like for me to move patients. It’s just easier not to book them during a certain window of time.” At my obvious relief, Dad continued, “We’ll get this family stuff down, you’ll see.”
I laughed. Whether it was from nerves and anxiety or Dad’s joke, I couldn’t tell, and maybe it didn’t matter.
Mom nodded. “We’re trying, and that’s what matters, right?”
“Right. I’m going to assume that if Lodestone gave you the dates, he’s also given you information about where to stay and things like that?”
“Correct.” Mom nodded. “I’m so glad you want us there.”
“I’m starting to find I need my family, after all.”
“I’m assuming you don’t mean just for money? And speaking of, what do you want to do about that contract since you’re not going to BU?” Mom said.
“I’ve kind of got a plan for that, if you’re willing to at least consider the notion.”
“For someone who’s barely kept his nose at the waterline, you’ve given a surprising amount of thought to his future.” Dad was always a shrewd one. He might not always have paid attention to what his family did, but he wasn’t stupid. “We’re certainly willing to listen, aren’t we, Dina?”
“We’ll always listen, yes,” Mom said.
“It’s occurred to me that barring anything unforeseen, my undergrad education’s essentially being paid for by CalPac, right?”
“Assuming you keep your crew scholarship, yes, and by all reports that’s not going to be an issue.” Dad made “keep going” gestures.
“So I wondered if maybe you’d be willing to at least help pay for a graduate program, instead.” Then I held my breath.
My parents looked at each other and basically shrugged. Huh.
“We’d have to see what it’d cost, of course. What kind of program are you thinking, or is it too soon yet?” Dad said.
I knew my parents. They’d always preferred the concrete to the airy-fairy, especially Dad. “I’ve been looking at nursing, as a matter of fact. It would make use of my biology major, and it’s attracted me since I contracted HIV.”
“I can think of worse reasons to go into a field, Steven,” Mom said.
Dad nodded. “So can I. Registered nurse? Nurse practitioner?”
“Probably an RN at first, but yes, eventually I’d like to be a nurse practitioner. The people who’ve helped me the most have been NPs.”
“Oh, yes, Heath and Jerry,” Mom said. “What do you call them, your HIV godfathers?”
I smiled. “Something like that. They’ve been inspirational, but the fact that UC Davis now has a school of nursing as part of its medical school has also been a factor in my calculations. Despite my best efforts, this area has gotten under my skin. I’d be able to stay in the Sacramento area and still pursue my education. Between City College, Sac State, and now the nursing school for the nurse practitioner education, it’s all covered. If CalPac weren’t paying for my education, it’d make sense to transfer somewhere that offered a bachelor’s degree in nursing. Since CalPac doesn’t, that’s not an option. I still think we’ll come out financially ahead this way.”
“You really have been thinking about this,” Mom said. I could tell she was impressed.
“Yep. While I may be clueless about what to do for the rest of my summer, I more or less have my future mapped out.”
“I can see that. I have to tell you, I’m as impressed by that as the fact that you don’t seem to want to be a rowing bum.” Dad started stacking dirty plates.
“Okay, so here’s the deal with rowing, and it’s a secret to no one in this family. I’m good, possibly with the potential to be great. I want to see how far it’ll take me.” I leaned back in my chair. “But even if it takes me to the Olympics a couple of times, crew isn’t one of the sports that lands endorsements, and even endorsements aren’t enough to set people up for life. At most, I might be able to sell myself as a motivational speaker, and that’s not what I want to do. Can you even see that? Remy Babcock, demotivational speaker. I won’t tell you how to do something, but I’ll tell you you’re an idiot for ten grand. So I’ll ride the carbon fiber for a while and when it’s time to get off, I will. I’ll always be involved in the sport in some manner, but do I want to be a collegiate coach? I’m not even sure I can say that. So… nursing.”
“Interesting” was all Dad said.
“Seriously, Dad. That’s what a lot of people who compete on the levels I’m heading for do when they reach the end of it. But I can’t honestly say I want to line up for Pendergast’s or Ridgewood’s jobs. Perhaps you’re thinking ‘bullshit’ or I’m burned out by training, and maybe you’re right.” I shrugged. “I’d still rather plan on nursing and kicking around Cap City and rowing for fun. Doesn’t that sound like a better way to live? It does to me.”
Mom laughed at that. “I think Geoff once said you’ve never been young. That proves it.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far, Dina, but I’ll say this. Remy, I don’t think your mother or I can argue with anything you’ve said, nor is there a reason to. Speaking as your father and as a therapist, I think you’ve got a healthy attitude toward crew and your future possibilities.” Mom nodded as Dad kept speaking. “While we’d have to see what Geoff has planned before we can commit to paying for all of nursing school, don’t think we’re not aware that your undergrad education—all of it—is costing us less than we’d pay for a year or two at BU.”
“Your father’s right. I know that CalPac wasn’t your first choice, and that you in fact attended it under duress, but not only are you thriving there, you’re happy. That should free up money for education beyond your bachelor’s.”
“All right, then. All I can do i
s thank you for listening. I know you don’t owe me anything, so… thanks for being willing to consider it.” I hoped they’d see their way to at least help to defray the costs. I was reasonably certain they would, as I knew they’d been saving for my education—Geoff’s, too—and that they weren’t touching that money, or at least not much of it.
Dad slowly shook his head. “When’d you turn into the reasonable one?”
“This year. I’ve grown up a lot.”
Then Dad shocked the hell out of me. He hugged me. “You certainly have, and I’m proud of you.”
“Stop it, Steven. You’ll scare him.”
Ladies and gentlemen, my parents.
Chapter 30
LODESTONE AND I flew out to West Windsor, New Jersey, a few days before the selection camp started. I wanted to get the lay of the land, as it were, to say nothing of rigging my boat to my satisfaction. Lodestone had spoken to my grandparents and explained the cost-benefit analysis of renting another boat versus paying to ship the boat I’d trained in across the country. They had clearly found that analysis compelling because I would be rowing my own single at the camp.
I felt some serious guilt where my grandparents and the cost of this were concerned and said as much to Lodestone. “I wish I’d kept receipts or something, maybe set myself up as a nonprofit.”
“Oh, Remy.” Lodestone patted my cheek in the most patronizing way possible. “For starters, nonprofits don’t actually work that way. Then there’s the fact that Cap City actually is a 501(c)(3) organization.”
I connected the whole thing in a flash. “So that’s why my grandparents have funneled everything through you. It’s actually being funneled through Cap City’s treasury so they can deduct all of this.”
“That and so my payroll deductions are on the up-and-up, but essentially, yes.”
“So who owns my boat?” I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer, but I knew I needed to.
“That’s the thing. Cap City’s board started to balk at that point, and your grandfather stepped in to deal with them personally. I don’t think they knew what hit them. I still want to know how rich they are.” Lodestone made an adjustment to the pitch of the oarlocks, squinting at them like that would make a difference. “Apparently the glory of having an athlete and coach training at the highest levels wasn’t enough. Whatever. I don’t know the details, only that one of the board members who’s a lawyer—family law, I think—went toe-to-toe with your grandfather’s business attorney. I’m told the results weren’t pretty, but oops. Sucks to be them. So the boat’s yours, I don’t know what your grandfather worked out, and the board got spanked.”
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air Page 30
